The biggest weakness of the human being is that we are a social animal that needs emotional as well as material support to survive, and perform anything with excellence.

This is a fact that runs from primitive age and no matter how advanced you are and how much time you can spend in silence, it is important to at least, know that there is a support system behind you that you can rely upon at the time of distress.

The support system in question does not only comprise of the support from friends and family who will inspire you in good times and bad while rectifying your mistake at times, but this would also include the material support that varies according to profession and the section of the population you belong to. For a freelance writer, the material support system is in the form of resources while writing, job boards, writers group for relevant information, client database, software for improving grammar and vocabulary and many such small yet relevant things. If you want to be successful in this field of work, you require each of them to be in proper order.

Why Support System Is Important For Freelancers?

Contrary to the common belief, work from home’ jobs are quite difficult, and requires dedication and determination for success. Those who believe that these jobs are easy to find, and you can treat the assignments loosely will never be able to find a job that pays decent amount. Finding even the first client will be difficult if you are not ready to be committed to the job. This does not mean that you require to quite your day job and do rigorous searching for earning some extra bucks. That is where the support system comes into play. There are writers groups such as LinkedIn writers group and many more that you can try out for making contacts. Similarly, there are other forums for specific occupations. You can look through job board such as Guru.com, Problogger, FreelanceWritingGigs and many more. There are some job portals too, that plays major role in finding your dream job. Until and unless these supports are there with a freelancer, it is not possible to survive in the job jungle. The rule of survival is applicable in the huge market of content writing, and that makes support even more indispensible.

What Are The Support Systems That The Freelancer May Look For?

The word, ‘support’, includes many things and each of them is equally important for the freelancers.

• Writers Boards: Writers board or job boards are open to all freelance writers and other professionals who are searching for opportunities to make it big in this industry. These boards bear gigs of jobs and small projects uploaded by the requesters. You may find something relevant to your skills in the job boards and if you are a writer with some sort of experience, this can be a great opportunity for you. Jobs.Problogger.net, Guru.com, WriteJobs.com and FreelanceWritingGigs.com are some of the well known job boards

• Writers or designer Groups: Writers groups are online forums where the writers share their contacts, information, skills, tips and many such things that add value to your profile. National Association of Writers’ Groups, LinkedIn writers group, Facebook writers’ community and many such online communities can be joined by a writer searching for relevant information and skill tips. If you are an aspiring writer without any project in hand, then this can be beneficial for you. Communicate with the established writers to find out how to start off and find clients.

  Similarly, you can find designer forums where designers discus on topics and share knowledge. DesignersTalk.com is one such website that can be checked out for additional help.

• Freelancing Job Portals: Elance is one of those few job portals that are visited by prospective requesters regularly. Writing-Job-Online.com, Freelancer.com and many more such websites are there to help you find a job that belongs to your territory. You can choose the jobs that you feel are suitable to you and bid for them. If there is a bidding option given for the job, make sure to bid low or reasonable as a beginner. Make your presence felt in the job portal till the time you are noticed by the requestors and given quality jobs with decent payment.
• Software for Grammar: You don’t have to be Shakespeare to become a freelance writer, proper grammatical knowledge and sentence formation skills are enough to succeed. However, there are people with flare for writing who don’t have very high grammatical sense. For them grammar checkers can be advised as support. These online and offline programs help you to rectify any grammatical error, and polish your English in such a way that the requestor would never know, that you are not that proficient in grammar. You can check out Grammarly, white smoke, ginger and many such programs for correcting your grammar. Some are available free while some may ask you to take paid membership after free trial.
• Vocabulary: It is important to improve your vocabulary to adapt different writing patterns. Though English is an international language, and a content writer requires being an efficient English writer, there are several forms of English that you may need to write. English for UK, USA and Australia are different from each other and the vocabulary used in them are also different. Learn American English Online, English Daily 626, BBC Learning English, Learning English via British Council, Englisch-hilfen are some of the websites that can improve your vocabulary and improve you English both written and spoken. Read a lot of articles and online content to have an idea of what the requesters are asking for.
• Payment Support: If you are a freelancer, then you may get jobs from around the world and it may not be possible for the requester to send payment to your account directly. That is the reason why you require payment portal support that not only receives payment, but also convert it to your home currency and transfers it to your home account. PayPal and Alert Pay are two of the best payment portals that are frequently used for converting and transferring money. You require having an account in one of these portals so that, requesters can transfer you money with ease.
• Portfolio Website: Freelancers often find it useful to have a website of their own, where they can publish the portfolio and contact information. The website requires having a professional look and if you can optimize the website using SEO tools, then the prospects would surely find you. You can also hire web hosting services along with WordPress blog support for publishing your content. If you are a designer, then a website with your portfolio in it is essential. If the prospects find your designs or projects interesting and suitable to their requirement, they may hire you soon. You can find providers that offer free website or URL with basis services. You require creating a home page, portfolio page, contact page and other pages that you may want to add.
• Technical Support: A freelance writer does not only require support for vocabulary, grammar, and writing helps, but he or she may also require technical help for building up a website. If you are building a website and want to make it look professional, then you may require support from a website design company or a technical person. You can also seek packages from companies that offer web hosting and website design together. These packages are quite reasonable and once you can grab control of the content market, you will not have problem with the price. It is also possible to get websites and blogs with already prepared themes that can be installed in your website for free. If you are a designer yourself, then this help may not be required for you.
• Blogs: Blogs help in building the market for the writer. The blogs that are based on a single niche are found to be most effective and these blogs often creates interest among prospects who would like to create a positive impression about their products to the prospective customers. Blogs are form of communication that people trust and if you can build your good name with the blogs, you can ask for decent bucks for writing blogs for companies. Even for a designer, blogs can be used to let people know the area of expertise.
• Article Submitting forums: There are several article submitting forum where you can submit your articles and receive reviews for them. There are forums where you can publish your article and can sell it for good bucks. There are companies waiting to purchase high quality write ups that are related to the products of the company and informative. Ezinearticles.com is one such forum that you can check out for a great content writing career.
• Social Media: Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others are best place for demonstrating your talent. These days, the social media is the biggest support that can either make or break the freelancer.

How to Add On To Your Support System

Freelancers, at some point of time in their career, understand the requirement of support system. However, there are many who find it difficult to add them in their daily work process. Some may also omit them and suffer big losses. There are some other people who quit their job to dedicate time to become a successful freelancer. Don’t worry, quitting your day job is not essential and you can continue to earn some extra bucks. Firstly, you need to determine, what amount of time you would like to dedicate to pursue your passion. Make a schedule for the day and dedicate at least 1 or 2 hours in the beginning. Start working for free and search for contents that let you know about the procedure of making it big. Purchase a website and start building it yourself or with the help of professionals. Check for the response you are getting on the free jobs because this will let you know if the work is suitable for you or not.

15 Advantages of Support System

It has been noted by one and all, that support plays a major role in human life. It can be emotional, mental, physical or material support, but each has a major role to play in the success story of an individual. Not everyone can be a ‘Robinson Crusoe’ doing everything on his own. Support is the backbone of success and the same is applicable for freelancing job. Different supports have different benefits that differ according to the field of work and expertise. The following advantage of support system can be pointed out.

• A proper support through a proper guide in the same field will make it easy to choose the best path. In case of freelancers, the startup is the most important factor and is he or she can gather required knowledge for starting up, he can actually be successful in the long run. For example, if you want to be a freelance writer and you have the information about the clients who tend to hire new people, you can start your journey successfully. If you are a programmer and you get tips from the experienced candidates regarding meeting deadlines, then you can complete projects on time with fewer errors.
• If you are thinking of starting as a freelancer, support from a freelancer group would make it possible for you to determine if the job is suitable for you or not.
• A support system can let you know about your weaknesses. If you have grammatical errors, it would correct it. You will learn some new terms, grammar and much more that would help you in the long run.
• Support can make you more professional and behave like and expert that is most required in the world of freelancing where perfect competition prevails.
• Support can help you get a notion of the loop holes of the market so that you can omit them and reach your goal faster. Those who have stumbled through the path have made the path smooth for the newcomers. You can get the direction to run through the path before starting to walk on them.
• The support through payment portal can make you get payment in time and you prove to be professional and international to your clients.
• The best part of support system is that you have something to fall back on. Even if you are given to write on a subject that you don’t have any idea on, you can discuss with your community people and you will surely find a point to start. The same is applicable for other job profiles.
• A support system in the form of groups will let you interact with your rivals and experts in your field. You can judge their strategy and find out a unique path for your own.
• Support makes your progress bound by calculation. When you have your steps planned, it is possible to reach the goal in stipulated time.
• Support can convert the beginner to an expert. With support from vocabulary, spelling and grammatical software the English can improve for the beginner writers. Other freelancers can use other such tools that rectify mistakes easily and bring out the proper solution in no time.
• Support gives you immense confidence because you tend to know that even if you make a mistake, there is somebody or software to rectify your mistake. Confidence is important for selling your talent but the required confidence can be gathers only when you know, your mistakes will be corrected.
• Support helps in achieving perfection and makes your skills more polished. If you are designing a webpage or writing the code for a new program, expert advice can let you perform the task well. Even if you are expert in the specific field of work, it is possible to make the project look more professional with expert advice.
• Success is a gradual process and if you have the proper support by your side, you will know the steps in advance. There are forums that would guide you through the steps.
• Support can improve your skill. Even if you are a novice in writing or programming, software and technical support can make you aware of the market requirement and you would understand what the clients actually want.
• Support can actually help you get through tricky situations without any hazards and save a lot of money.

Conclusion

The requirement of support system for freelancers cannot be denied, and the good news is that there are numerous support systems available for them to rely on. There are some of them that are relevant to one occupation and there are some that are applicable irrespective of the field of work. As freelancers are non full timer with a specific company to work for, an experience to showcase, a regular salary to rely on, and the requirement for continuous performing is more in this form of jobs rather than the day jobs. However, you have the freedom to determine your working hours, schedule, capacity and you can choose works that you feel would suit you. Nevertheless, your responsibility would always be to choose the proper support system and add them in your structure of work for positive result.